


Objects in the Rear View Mirror

by Meilan_Firaga



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abusive Lucius Malfoy, Chance Meetings, Conversations, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hurt/Comfort, Insomnia, Late Night Conversations, Mild Language, Mild Smut, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:13:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27787306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meilan_Firaga/pseuds/Meilan_Firaga
Summary: Surviving the war wasn't the hard part. Living once the survival is over is where things get tricky. A year after everything ended, Hermione Granger is still struggling to get a handle on the whole concept of 'moving on.' She doesn't process the things the way the rest of her friends do, and no one wants to talk about what they went through anymore. They all want to move on and forget the finer details of what happened. She's not sure she'll ever be ready to do the same until a chance meeting on a sleepless night provides her with a dramatic shift in perspective.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 17
Kudos: 63
Collections: Heart Attack Exchange 2020





	Objects in the Rear View Mirror

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NekoMida](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NekoMida/gifts).



> Title and lyrics between story sections from [Objects In The Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are by Meat Loaf](https://open.spotify.com/track/6Vfiskl8VZSui0ggqd5Mfg?si=-e9TndNATAa6nUzDAmFzoQ). Link opens in Spotify.

The flat was small, consisting only of an open concept kitchen and living room just inside the entry door that was separated from the lone bedroom only by the existence of an enclosed bathroom that served to divide the space in two. The walls were beige, the floors were cost-effective faux hardwood, and every light fixture was a serviceable but inexpensive piece that could have come from any home store. Four windows lined the one long exterior wall that stretched the length of the flat: two in the living area, one directly in front of the bathroom door, and one in the bedroom. Most important, though, was the feature it lacked: a fireplace. No unexpected visitors and no Floo calls. Muggle London had its advantages.

Hermione Granger had taken a moving truck from her parents’ now-abandoned home to the flat on a busy street just three blocks over from The Leaky Cauldron early that morning. Her hired hands arrived at precisely nine, just as she’d requested. They were burly youths—rugby players, she suspected—from a nearby private school, and they were both kind and efficient. They unloaded her collection of heirloom and thrift store furniture with a blanket degree of care, sure not to ding any corners or scrape any paint when making the turn on the staircase landings, and followed her precise instructions as to where things should be placed. After all the big pieces were moved they carted up her series of color-coded and labeled boxes, stacked them neatly in the areas she designated for each set of items, and asked with a smile if she needed anything else when they were finished. She handed over their payment and tipped them handsomely as a reward for not complaining as they carried her possessions up three flights of stairs with hardly any break at all. At their insistence, she took a handmade business card and agreed to call them if she had any more need of laborers.

Then, from beneath the safety of Harry’s invisibility cloak she’d borrowed for the occasion, she charmed all three windows to appear like closed curtains from the outside, and the real work began.

A few carefully constructed spells over her lease meant she didn’t have to worry about her landlord paying her an unexpected visit, which meant she could adjust her new home to her heart’s content. She placed a bag of supplies atop her coffee table, and rolled up her sleeves. She’d been reading and practicing for the entire two weeks since she’d signed the lease, preparing to make this place her home. 

The walls changed colors in an instant, wainscotting and crown molding bleeding from the drywall into solid reality. Light fixtures sprouted extra appendages to change their shape and size. The kitchen cabinets—painted white—became polished birch wood while the counters took on the appearance of grey marble. The bathroom interior expanded, making way for a comfortable soaker tub beside the shower stall. The bedroom floor grew a thick, lush coating of cream-colored carpet, and the living room furniture lifted itself up to allow rugs space to unroll beneath. The long exterior wall, once drab and boring, became the host of beautiful floor to ceiling bookshelves interspersed here and there with glass-doored cabinets to house a plethora of ingredients and magical tools.

Most of the items in her boxes she unpacked with a few flicks of her wand, but the books were special. She couldn’t bear to sort them any other way than by hand. Even the magical texts that she’d hidden from prying muggle eyes beneath a litany of spells were lovingly placed on the shelves one at a time. Stretching up on the tips of her toes to reach the top shelf, Hermione carefully nudged her battered hardback copy of Peter S. Beagle’s  _ The Last Unicorn _ into a place of honor between  _ The Complete Works of William Shakespeare _ and her collection of epic poems in the original Latin. 

Task complete, she stepped back, placed her hands on her hips, and looked around the cozy little apartment. The living area was bright and airy in spite of all the wood, the light colors of the birch perfectly complemented by her selection of white wallpaper patterned in subtle pastel delphiniums to sit between the crown molding above and the wainscotting below. The light fixtures were surrounded by domes woven of fake branches, giving them a sense of style without compromising good light for reading. Her matching sofa and wingback chair were periwinkle blue, sumptuously appointed for long hours of reading. A worktable was braced against one of the interior walls, ready to serve as both a desk and a potions bench as the need arose. She didn’t have a kitchen table, instead planning to use a pair of stools pushed up to the counter meant to divide the space.

In the bedroom the walls were a stormy grey mostly hidden beneath fabric hangings of various jewel tones interspersed with bolts of cream and chocolate-colored fabrics. It would be dark in the nighttime hours but still positively shimmer with life in the light of day.

It was not a home that was friendly to company, and that suited Hermione just fine. She’d had enough of company after six years in boarding school. Another year spent sharing houses and tents with teenage boys had soured her further on the concept. Then, she’d gotten her fill of yet more company during the six months she’d lived with Ron and suffered the constant barrage of his family (all of whom she dearly loved, really) showing up uninvited. Living with Harry for the last six months since she’d realized that she and Ron were better off as friends may have saved her taste for being around others if it hadn’t been for the fact that Harry truly loved to have people around at all times. If he weren’t having friends over for dinner he was glued to Ginny, their private relations entirely too public for her liking as his roommate.

It was all fine for them, of course. She wished them nothing but happiness. She, however, was desperate for some peace and sodding quiet.

That was part of why she’d chosen to move to muggle London instead of finding a flat off of Diagon Alley. The rest of her reasoning was more complicated. While Ron had sworn that he understood and even agreed with her choice to end their tumultuous romantic attachment, his behavior was very much the opposite. He’d taken to turning up at Harry’s at all hours just to try and get her alone. She loved him, and she wanted to stay friends, but if she didn’t get some space she was going to hex him across the Atlantic.

Thankfully, he wasn’t particularly adept at navigating the muggle world. Moreover, he was less likely to keep turning up without the excuse of Harry’s friendship acting as a buffer. Hermione was looking forward to long evenings with her books and no one making cow eyes from across the room.

Yes, living alone and outside of the wizarding world was going to be quite wonderful.

\---

_ And when the sun descended and the night arose _

_ I heard my father cursing everyone he knows _

\---

Saturday night dinner with his parents was the one concession Draco Malfoy had made in his determination to start his life anew. It was a concession he wouldn’t have bothered to make at all if his mother and father hadn’t moved from their ancestral home to a smaller estate in the Channel Islands. They’d wanted to move to France, but the Channel Islands was as far as the Ministry was willing to let them go so soon after the war. The estate was much smaller than the Manor, but it was still far more than Draco’s mother and father needed, particularly now that they weren’t likely to be hosting crowded events for a certain power-hungry dark wizard of ill repute.

As much as he loved his mother and wanted her to have happiness, he loathed the dinners—mostly because he was forced to spend time with his father. Lucius Malfoy’s temperament, while not as intense as it had been before the war, was still a foul thing. The only reason he wasn’t rotting in a cell in Azkaban was that the prison hadn’t been repaired to a standard that suited the new Ministry officials. They had incarcerated some of the more dangerous Death Eaters in places unknown, but thanks to Potter’s testimony even Lucius had been granted a reprieve: his wand was snapped and he was bound to the grounds of the new estate by a litany of spells that he had no hope of breaking. The household itself was placed under a similar observation charm to the one the Ministry used to observe the magic use of underage witches and wizards living outside of wizarding homes.

All of it made the Malfoy patriarch even less pleasant than usual.

His mood, of course, was not helped by Draco’s newfound independence. 

When the trials were done and Draco found himself free but for an obligation to regularly check in with the Auror in charge of his parole—Potter, naturally—he’d decided to wrench his life free from the grasp of his family’s nasty history even if it killed him. The first step he’d taken was to move out on his own. Instead of packing his belongings off to the Channel Islands he temporarily moved into a room above The Leaky Cauldron in the heart of London. He wanted to be away from acres of land and horrid memories, and he needed to go somewhere he could learn to think for himself all over again. He lived above the Leaky for three months, much to his father’s chagrin. 

In that time he made a point of having dinner in the pub most nights if only to observe the way wizarding society moved on from the trauma and tragedy of the war. He learned a lot. Blood status was not, as his father had regularly insisted throughout his childhood, something that ever seemed to come up in casual conversation. He found that even after surreptitiously watching and listening to the same witches and wizards night after night he still didn’t know where they stood on the spectrum of pureblood to muggleborn. It was an enlightening experience to realize that no one outside of the Dark Lord’s demented circles really seemed to care at all.

The downside to this new knowledge, of course, was that his newfound understanding made his parents that much more difficult to handle.

Mother was fine. She had her less than tasteful opinions, but she was at least well-versed enough in the concept of tact to understand that those opinions were no longer welcome in polite society. She’d purged words like ‘mudblood’ from her vocabulary and started trading on more wholesome signs of status than what ancestors her acquaintances had in common. She’d even tentatively reconnected with her estranged sister, Andromeda, who had lost so much in the war. They still didn’t have regular visits, communicating instead mostly through owl post, but they were bonding over the shared realization that they’d wasted too much time disagreeing on trivial matters. Draco and Lupin’s young son were the only legacy the two of them had left, and they seemed determined not to take that for granted any longer.

Lucius, however, had no such desire to better himself and rejoin society. He had already rewritten his own ill-treatment toward the end of the war as a deserved punishment in his mind. It was frightening, to a degree, the level of codependency he’d developed for a wizard who’d never cared in the least whether Lucius and his kin lived or died. He spat curses on muggles and wizards alike, damning anyone who ‘stood in the way of the Malfoy rise to glory.’

To be perfectly honest, Draco had begun to suspect that his father’s mind was irreparably broken in those last days of the war. There was little left of the proud, capable man he had been. The only resemblance the man who was left had to the one that had raised him was a nasty temper and a disdain for anyone he felt was beneath his station. 

“I still can’t believe you’re living over that nasty pub with the lower class riff-raff,” the elder Malfoy hissed over his salad before Draco was even settled in his chair at the dinner table. “You are a Malfoy. You should have more pride than that.”

Draco reached for a roll from the basket in the center of the table. “I’m sure my old schoolmates would be delighted to find you think I lack pride. Some of them might faint with shock.”

“You certainly have no pride in your name,” Lucius sneered.

“In case you haven’t noticed, Father, our name is mud in this new world.” He split the roll and liberally filled it with butter, finding that even dressed in such a way it still wasn’t as tasty as the hearty bread at the Leaky. “And since your memory also seems to be failing I’d like to remind you that I moved out of the room at The Leaky Cauldron months ago.”

“How are you liking your flat, my darling?” Narcissa asked, seizing the opportunity to change the subject and holding it tightly. “I do worry about you living in London. There are just so many  _ people _ .”

“I like the people,” Draco insisted. “The fact that there are so many in such a small space just going about their lives makes me feel oddly not alone.” 

He took a sip from his wine and launched into a thorough description of the changes he’d made to his new apartment, carefully avoiding the elephant in the room about exactly where in London it was located. That revelation had sent Lucius spitting when he’d first dropped it on them, and he suspected that was exactly why his father kept ‘forgetting’ that he’d moved. He kept the conversation light for his mother’s sake, counting the courses of the meal as they passed in anticipation of returning home. 

Finally, after what felt like an eternity of polite small talk, he was allowed to make his way down the gravel drive to the apparition point at the property’s boundary. His mother stood in the doorway to see him off, waving with misty eyes as though he wouldn’t be returning in a week’s time to suffer through his father’s company all over again. Lucius hadn’t bothered to follow them outside. He gave his mother a genuine smile and wave once he stood outside the gate, then quickly turned to disapparate. 

When he’d left that afternoon the racket downstairs from a new tenant moving in was loud enough to have him casting a charm over the floors to keep out the noise, but when he appeared in the middle of his living room it was almost deafeningly silent. Not even the normal hustle and bustle of the world outside his windows seemed to penetrate through the black cloud of pain and frustration that followed in his father’s wake. He moved through the flat without bothering to illuminate the place, tossing his robes over the back of the sofa and stomping through to his bedroom. He knew without trying that sleep would not be his companion that night. So, he changed his clothes, grabbed his old school satchel, and stepped out into the night.

\---

_ There were endless winters and the dreams would freeze _

_ Nowhere to hide and no leaves on the trees _

\---

_ The pain in her arm was excruciating. The jagged blade bit deep into her flesh, the magic within settling into the wound and establishing permanence. Tears pooled in the corners of her eyes and rolled over the sides of her face into her hairline. Her breath came in short, stuttering gasps as she tried to hold back her whimpers. _

_ “Don’t bother to scream, my filthy little mudblood,” Bellatrix hissed against the side of her face, her breath hot and reeking. “No one’s coming for you…” _

With a strangled gasp, Hermione sat up on the sofa. She panted as she looked frantically around the room, trying to ground herself in reality. Her heart continued to thump painfully inside her chest as she tried to catch her breath. She ran a hand over one side of her face and stared blankly at her palm when it came away damp with tears from her cheek. Her eyes were hot and scratchy, requiring a substantial amount of blinking before she was able to bring her surroundings into sharp focus. Her flat—new and still unfamiliar—was dark save for the soft glow of the lamp on a sideboard she’d plugged into a muggle timer. The book she’d been reading before she had apparently fallen asleep had fallen to the floor and was splayed open over the thick fibers of the rug. 

The nightmares were not a new experience. In fact, they came around more often than she was willing to admit in most conversations. She re-lived her treatment at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange so regularly that not a single detail of her time in the horrid place had begun to fade from her memory. It was a testament to how used to them she’d grown that within five minutes of her harsh awakening she had already managed to calm her racing heart and begun to put herself to rights. She gathered the heavy tome from the rug, straightened a few crumpled pages, and placed it in the middle of her coffee table. 

She’d placed a mantle clock one one of her many shelves, and she turned to read its face while she worked a hand over one of the tense muscles in the small of her back. It was already after nine in the evening. Angry at herself for the impromptu nap, she trudged back to her bathroom and flipped on the light. Her hair was a nightmare, plastered to her head on one side and a frizzy mess on the other. She threaded her fingers into the wild locks to tug some of the tangles free before weaving the strands into a thick plait over one shoulder.

The downside of nightmares—apart from the obvious, of course—was that she knew she would never be able to get any kind of restful sleep that night. She’d found over the months that once she’d been awakened with a fright that she’d see the same images every time she closed her eyes until the sun had risen and set all over again. Luckily this time she wasn’t going to have to go in to work the following morning. She stepped back out of the bathroom and glanced around the dimness of her flat. She was still thrilled by the way it looked, but in the wake of her dream she found herself missing the busyness of Harry’s home. Normally, she would set herself up in a part of the house were people regularly passed through when her past came back to haunt her sleep. It let her have a sense of not being alone. Plus, all the boys were so emotionally clueless (bless them) that they usually didn’t bother to ask what she was doing awake. 

Deciding that she probably shouldn’t stay in for the sake of her own sanity, she shuffled into her bedroom and foraged for cleaner clothes. She found a pair of jeans and a sweater that didn’t look like they’d caught any of the day’s moving dust and quickly got changed. 

Much of Diagon Alley still closed each with the setting of the sun, but she found herself quite unbothered by that. There were plenty of muggle establishments where she could both be comfortably surrounded by people and still left to her own devices. In particular, there was a cafe she’d stopped in after she first toured the apartment that advertised itself as a twenty-four hour establishment. She’d thought they made an excellent cup of tea, and with the way she was feeling a great cup of tea was exactly the kind of thing she needed.

Her purse full of books and papers felt heavy compared to the undetectable extension charm on the bag she regularly carried, but it wouldn’t do to be pulling objects from nowhere while she was in a muggle establishment. She set the wards from within her living room and slipped her wand up her sleeve before she stepped out into the hallway. She felt the wards snap down the moment the left, leaving a familiar electric hum in their wake. She’d initially learned wards by necessity, but they’d become a bit of a hobby since the end of the war. Having experimented with a variety of pre-established warding spells she’d developed a style that were both simple and nearly impenetrable.

Outside the streets of London were busy, unheeding of the hour growing ever later. A thin drizzle was streaking down from the sky, soaking into her hair and clothes. She quickened her steps, turning corners and hastening along the sidewalk in the direction of the cafe she remembered. Her feet took her farther from The Leaky Cauldron and the wizarding heart of London, moving steadily into the most mundane muggle streets. In for a Cuppa was located on the corner of two alleys crossing between major thoroughfares, hidden from the busier streets. Even though it was nearly ten at night by the time she pulled open the glass front door and stepped into its cheery warmth they still appeared to be doing a brisk business. A few tables were occupied, and there were three people ahead of her when she stepped up to the end of the line to place her order.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath while she waited, pulling the comforting scents of coffee, tea, and sugar deep into her lungs. Being dentists, her parents had always been adamant that she avoid the kinds of fare sold in cafes such as this. It wasn’t until she’d been at Hogwarts for several years that she truly grasped the comforting feeling of particular kinds of food. 

“Hello!” the cashier—a woman older than her by a few years with a metal stud just below her bottom lip—chirped in enthusiastic greeting when she stepped up to the counter. “Will you be dining here or taking away?”

“Dining here, please.” Hermione gave her a small smile in return, sure by the glance the other woman gave her bag that she assumed she was a student of some kind.

“Wonderful! What can we make for you this gloomy evening?”

“A pot of earl grey.” She glanced sideways at the glass display case, feeling just a tad indulgent. “And two shortbread tea biscuits as well, please.” She held out a few notes of muggle money when the woman gave her a total.

“Have a seat wherever you like,” the woman insisted while she passed over the change. “We’ll bring it out to you shortly.”

Hermione turned to do exactly that and stopped dead in her tracks when she caught sight of one of the patrons seated at a table in the back corner. He was dressed similarly to her in jeans, a black sweater, and a worn pair of trainers. There was an olive green jacket draped over the back of his chair. He held a steaming mug of something in one hand and a thick paperback book in the other. His white-blonde hair was mostly covered by a black knit cap, but she’d know that ferrety face anywhere. Gathering her bearings, she set out across the room and right up to the table where Draco Malfoy was sitting.

\---

_ I know I still believe he'd never let me leave, I had to run away alone _

_ So many threats and fears, so many wasted years before my life became my own _

\---

Draco was just beginning to get truly absorbed in his book when he was startled by a loud huff at the end of his table. He placed his thumb against his place, looked up, and nearly dropped his book entirely when he found Hermione Granger staring down at him. The thick braid of her hair was mussed and a little rain-slick, and the pinched expression on her face was painfully familiar. 

“Granger,” he murmured as politely as he could manage. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Malfoy.” Her tone was clipped. She pursed her lips as if searching for the right words before she opened her mouth to continue. “What are you doing here?”

He couldn’t help it. He’d been a snarky little shit to her for too much of his life. “Your talent for observation is astounding. I’m having a coffee and getting some reading done.”

“You know what I mean,” she hissed, two spots of color rising high in her cheeks. Something swooped in Draco’s stomach. Had she always been so lovely to look at? She glanced around them quickly to make sure no one was close enough to be listening. “What are you doing in a _muggle_ _cafe_?”

“Having a coffee and reading,” he repeated, letting the corner of his lips quirk up in a smirk. “Do sit down, Granger. You’re going to start drawing attention standing there like that.”

She didn’t wait for him to insist. He dug in his pocket for a scrap of paper to mark his place in the book while she pulled out the chair on the other side of the table. Her book bag made a heavy thump when she swung it down from her shoulder. Before the interrogation could continue, however, one of the shop’s workers appeared beside them with a small tray. In short order she set a pot of tea, an empty teacup, and a small plate of shortbread biscuits in front of Granger. The former Gryffindor thanked her and immediately set about making her cup, so Draco set his book aside and watched her over the rim of his coffee mug. She was meticulous as she measured out sugar from the container on the table and stirred it carefully into her cup. As she finished her adjustments and lifted the cup to her lips to blow over the tea’s surface her eyes fell to his book. Her eyelashes fluttered, blinking in surprise at the title.

“You’re reading Treasure Island?” she asked, tilting the cup so she could take a sip.

Draco raised an eyebrow. “Is there something wrong with that?”

“Not at all. It’s just not a tale I would have thought would be in your to-read pile.”

“What would you know about my to-read pile, Granger?” He set his mug back on the table and crossed his arms over his chest. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but aside from the facts that I bullied you at school and my father’s a monster you know very little about me.”

They considered one another across the breadth of the table for several long moments. In the back of his mind, the habit for provoking tempers that Draco had spent his developmental years feeding whispered that he should say something, that he should taunt her. He kept a tight leash on that instinct. He knew for certain that if he pissed off Granger he’d be hearing about it the next time he met with Potter. On top of that, though, was a dreadful sort of curiosity. He’d only ever known her as either Potter’s constant companion or his own most formidable academic rival. There was more than a passing desire for him to learn more about what made her tick. She sipped at her tea slowly, her eyes never leaving his face while she searched for…  _ something _ . He couldn’t figure out exactly what she was searching for.

“You’re right,” she eventually conceded. “I don’t know you well, though I daresay I do know you more than what you’ve listed.”

Draco snorted. “Is that so? Do enlighten me.”

“I know you’re enough of a good man that you refused to give Harry up when the Snatchers brought him into your home even though you know for a fact it was him.”

That shut him up.

He blinked at her in shock, his jaw working silently. It wasn’t that she was wrong. He just hadn’t realized that other people were aware he’d lied about recognizing Potter. She continued to watch him, still slowly sipping on that cup of tea. Her gaze was bland, as though there could be no argument that her words were true. She wasn’t saying it to try and bait him, then. She just genuinely believed it.  _ How odd. _

“My stinging hex was good,” she told him wryly while she finally lowered her cup to the table, “but Harry’s pretty distinctive. The two of you spent too much time irritating one another for you not know him beneath a teensy bit of swelling.”

He shook himself, realizing that he was gaping at her rather like a fish out of water, and plastered the armor of a sardonic smirk over his face. “If that’s what you’re calling ‘a teensy bit’ of swelling, Granger, remind me never to make you angry enough to send that hex in my direction.” He glanced around them at the mostly empty shop to be sure that none of the other patrons were listening too closely. “Though, maybe we shouldn’t be talking about that too loudly here.”

With an irritable huff, Granger bent to one side and rummaged in her bag. He caught a glimpse of a polished bit of wood in her hand for a split second, heard her mutter something under her breath, and then felt the familiar rush of magic as it settled over them. He raised an interested eyebrow at her while she put herself to rights.

“Muffliato,” she said by way of explanation. “It was one of Snape’s. Creates a sort of buzzing cloud the cover a conversation.”

“Convenient, that. How’d you get Snape to teach it to you?”

She burst into a sudden, full-throated laugh. “Like that man ever willingly taught a Gryffindor. Harry found it in Snape’s old potions text our sixth year.”

“Ugh.” Draco shook his head, a lot of things that happened that year making a sudden, bitter sort of sense. “I knew he couldn’t have gotten good at potions overnight.”

“I thought I was going mad for half the year,” Granger agreed with a sage nod. Her gaze zeroed in on his face with a frightening level of focus. “Why are you here, Malfoy? In the muggle world?”

He couldn’t look at her. He hadn’t anticipated it being this hard, admitting his determination to change to someone who’d seen the worst of who he used to be. “Watching your blood relatives torture, maim, and kill people on the floor of your childhood home can cause a terrible shift in perspective.” He shivered in spite of the warmth of his sweater, his hands moving up and down his arms reflexively. “I wanted to see life the way most of wizarding society does, so I lived over the Leaky for a while. And then I was tired of learning about wizards and witches, so I… sort of branched out a bit.”

“This is a pretty big branch.”

“Well,” he began, tilting his head to one side, “when you’re trying to distance yourself from your Death Eater family you might as well jump in with both feet. Also, it turns out once you start drinking the coffee prepared in one of these quaint little shops it doesn’t taste the same made at home any more.”

“So, how are you finding it?”

Draco frowned, startled by the sudden question. He’d just told her how he found the coffee, hadn’t he? Granger smiled, stretched her arm across the table, and tapped twice on the cover of his book.

“Treasure Island,” she clarified. “It’s been a bit since I read it, but from what I remember it was a grand adventure.”

The tension in his shoulders finally easing, Draco launched into a discussion of his latest novel experience, elated to have a willing conversational partner.

\---

_ And though the nightmares should be over, some of the terrors are still intact _

_ I'll hear that ugly coarse and violent voice and then he grabs me from behind, and he pulls me back _

\---

Before Hermione knew it, the clock on the cafe’s wall read half past two in the morning. Their conversation had flowed from Treasure Island to other novels the both of them read and then somehow circled around to sleeplessness and nightmares. Malfoy admitted—barely—that he had the most trouble with both after his weekly dinners with his parents. Lucius’ foul temperament, he said, always brought back the memories of the worst of the memories from the time that Malfoy Manor had played host to the worst of Voldemort’s entourage. 

Haltingly, she’d admitted to him that she still had nightmares of the time she’d spent within those same walls. There was pain in his eyes when she said it, as though he genuinely believed there was something he could have done to prevent her treatment that he had neglected to do. She changed the subject quickly, talking instead of the nights camping in her modified tent and how she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to sleep in the woods again. He countered with the question of why she might ever want to, and then they’d talked for a while about her camping trips as a child before she looked up and realized the lateness of the hour.

“I should be getting home,” she said, standing from the table to slip her jacket back over her shoulders. She refused to analyze (yet) why she felt a bit reluctant to leave. “It’s later than I meant to stay out.”

“There’s not a safe apparition point nearby,” he pointed out.

Hermione waved a dismissive hand, thinking of the few city blocks that separated them from her cozy new apartment. “I don’t live far. I’ll walk.”

“I’ll walk you.” Malfoy was on his feet before she could stop staring at him in mild surprise, sliding his arms into the olive green jacket. Up close, she could see a number of patches for bands she’d only vaguely heard of scattered over the jacket’s front. 

“There’s no need for all that,” she tried to assure him, internally kicking herself for being oddly pleased that he’d even consider it. “I’m quite capable of taking care of myself.”

“Of course you are,” he huffed as though it were a given. He tucked his book into one of the jacket’s deep pockets and tossed a few bills on the table as an additional tip for the night staff. A generous tip, and one he was apparently used to leaving since he didn’t hesitate over the muggle currency. “But it’s polite.”

“Don’t feel like you have to stand on ceremony on my account, Malfoy.”

“Granger,” he insisted, his voice quiet. There was a bit of vulnerability behind the steel grey of his eyes when he looked down at her, like he might break a little bit if she refused his attempt at kindness. “Let me walk you.”

“Fine,” she huffed, turning and stalking toward the door if only to keep him from seeing the color rising in her cheeks. Outside, beneath the shadowed safety of a world lit only by streetlights, she relaxed and waited for him to catch up. He offered her an arm when he came through the door, a sarcastic brow quirked in her direction. She rolled her eyes at him in a silent refusal to take it and turned toward home, fighting to keep her steps slow and casual instead of the rushed pace she wanted to take. 

The drizzling rain had long since dissipated, leaving the night cool and quiet. Malfoy placed himself between her and the street as they meandered down the sidewalk, his hands tucked into the pockets of his trousers. He seemed to be looking anywhere but at her directly, the sharp angles of his face shadowed by the lights they passed beneath while he took in the architecture and atmosphere of a muggle street in the wee hours of the night. Hermione found herself watching him closely in her periphery, trying to come to a decision about the hours they’d spent in one another’s company. This was not the spoiled brat she’d grown up with, and she wasn’t sure how to handle a Draco Malfoy that she could apparently talk to for hours without getting bored or annoyed.

“Do I have something on my face?” he asked mildly after a few moments, still paying more attention to their surroundings than to her. 

“What?” she asked, hurriedly looking away.

“You were staring, Granger.”

“I was just wondering how you ended up reading Treasure Island in the first place,” she lied, covering her curious stare with the first thought that popped into her mind. 

“Would you believe me if I said my mother?”

Hermione snorted and turned to look at him again. He had a faint smile playing across his lips. “No.”

“It’s true,” he told her with a shrug. “When Father was still being held before his trial and I said I wanted to learn more about everything that wasn’t pureblood wizards she gave me a list of muggle books that she thought I ought to read.”

“I find that very hard to believe,” Hermione insisted. She watched as he visibly deflated, and it occurred to her that this little revelation was probably something he’d never shared with anyone before. In all the conversations they’d had, he never once mentioned any of his fellow schoolmates even though she talked of Harry and Ron more than once. Something curled up deep in her chest, and she felt the urge to apologize for the accidental slight. The next time they came to a halt to await a walk signal she wrapped one hand around the crook of his elbow as though he’d offered it to her again. “How did your mother come by a list of muggle books?”

He bent his elbow just a bit, drawing her slightly closer so they could walk comfortably when the signal changed. “My aunts were the extremists of their branch of the Black family: Bellatrix with her loopy fanaticism and Aunt Andromeda with her violent rejection of the family beliefs. My mother has always been more of a middle ground. Before she was disowned, Andromeda used to sneak muggle novels to read. She’d charm the covers to look like Divination texts.”

“And she read adventure stories?”

“The way I understand it, she read just about anything,” he said. There was a wistful sort of look on his face. “Mother believes that because they have no true magic in their lives that the muggles got all the gift for imagination. I wish she’d taught me that sooner. My childhood could have been a lot more interesting.”

Hermione mulled over the theory while they continued to walk with not a small amount of awe. It never would have occurred to her to make such an analysis, but it was true. Muggle fiction was rich with wild flights of fancy. Wizarding fiction, by comparison, was rather dull. How funny that a woman from one of Britain’s most staunchly prejudiced pureblood families had come to such a conclusion.

“Granger.” Malfoy speaking her name startled her.

“Yes, Malfoy?”

“Are you leading me to that brick building on the corner?”

Hermione looked up across the street where her building was looming while they waited for another crosswalk light to change and bristled a bit, half expecting him to insult the place. “Why would that matter?”

“Because I live in that building on the corner.”

“You have got to be joking.”

“You know, I never thought I was any good at jokes,” he said conversationally, tugging her along as the light changed and he stepped into the street. The arm she wasn’t holding raised, lifting his hand from his pocket with a small ring of keys dangling from his fingers. “My flat’s on the top floor.”

As if to prove his words, he unlocked the outer door when they reached it and held it open for her to step inside. They took the stairs together, quiet and a bit disbelieving. Hermione’s mind was spitting out odds and statistics at a rapid fire pace. Of all the buildings in all the vast muggle parts of the country, she’d wound up living in the same one as Draco Malfoy. 

He walked her all the way to her door, gently detached her hand from the crook of his elbow, and gave her a faint smile. 

“Goodnight, Granger.”

“Malfoy?” she called just as his foot landed on the bottom of the next flight of stairs. He half-turned to look at her over his shoulder. “This has been a strange night.”

“A bit,” he admitted with a nod. Then, he gave her a smile unlike any other she’d seen that night. It tied her stomach in knots and sent a shiver up her spine. “Wouldn’t mind more like it, though.”

\---

_ But it was long ago and it was far away, oh God it seems so very far _

_ And if life is just a highway, then the soul is just a car _

\---

It became a kind of habit for the two of them to meet on sleepless nights. Of course, since most nights were sleepless to some degree that meant they found themselves in one another’s company on regular occasions. Draco began to think of it as charity work. He’d heard tales of Granger’s experiment with house elf liberation the year of the Triwizard Tournament. He wouldn’t put it past her to have started some kind of Death Eater reformation project with him as her test subject. Plus, in the rare moments he was willing to admit to it, he found that he kind of liked talking with her. She had a biting wit that made for very entertaining discussions.

“To be perfectly honest,” she began one night in the midst of a lingering silence when they’d both been pretending to read while truly letting their thoughts wander where they ought not, “I couldn’t take it anymore. The hero worship.”

“A member of the Golden Trio uncomfortable with continuing praise?” he snarked back over the top of his book. Dumas, this time. The Three Musketeers. “I may die of shock.”

She sniffed primly in response and idly stirred her tea. “Not me, you insufferable prat. Dumbledore.”

That caught his full attention. Draco marked his place and set the book neatly to one side before folding his hands together and watching her face carefully. “I would have thought you would be among the masses singing his praises.” He deepened his voice and affected his best impression of Hagrid’s accent. “ _ Great man, Dumbledore _ , and all that.”

“Don’t make fun of Hagrid,” she scolded reflexively while she added another half-scoop of sugar to her cup. 

“Never.” He was startled to find himself feeling a little pride that she could scold him so out of hand. It sounded like the kind of needling reminder he’d heard her throw at Potter and Weasley so many times when they were at school. “So, what about the old man’s fan club keeps you from singing his praises?”

“Perhaps I would be if I didn’t know so much about him.” She stopped stirring the tea, but didn’t move to take a sip. “He wasn’t really. A great man, that is. He wasn’t even a particularly good leader.” She looked up at him then, her eyes pleading for something he couldn’t quite decipher.

He raised his hands in mock surrender. “Don’t look at me to defend him. I spent sixth year trying to kill the man.” 

She rolled her eyes and waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, please. You were a scared child doing whatever you could think of to try and keep your family safe from a megalomaniac with a superiority complex. You were never trying all that hard.”

Draco’s mind screeched to a halt. She said it so surely, as if it were as obvious as the color of the sky. No one had ever stated his innocence in that matter so succinctly. For the first time in the weeks that they’d been doing… well, whatever it was that they were doing—he truly believed that she didn’t think he was evil. It was a heady, terrifying thought. Blinking, he forced himself back to attention only to realize that he’d probably missed a good portion of a rant on the subject of Dumbledore’s handling of several matters throughout the war.

“You, in particular, are a perfect example,” she explained, clearly having not noticed his wandering attention. “There he was, the most powerful wizard in Britain. Headmaster of a school and prominent member of wizarding society. He learns from Snape that you have been tasked with his murder, and what does he do about it?  _ He asks Snape to kill him instead _ . Supposedly so your soul wouldn’t be tainted or some crock of shite.”

“I love hearing a goody-two-shoes like you swear, Granger.”

“Hush. So, he asks this other man who also has dealt with the pressures of a horrific homelife to kill him in your stead. Because that makes loads more sense than approaching you,  _ the actual child in this terrible situation _ , and trying to do something that would help you and your family be free of old Moldypot’s evil clutches.” Hermione huffed in frustration and took a deep sip of her rapidly cooling tea. 

He smirked teasingly at her while she drank. “If you ever see my father again, will you please call the Dark Lord ‘old Moldypot’ in front of him?”

“Only if you learn how to operate a muggle video camera so we can watch his reaction over and over again.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” His smirk faded while his mind turned back to the more serious topic at hand. “I wish I could say that I was surprised by the way that Dumbledore handled things with myself and my housemates, but to say I am would be lying. It’s my understanding that he never had much care for Slytherin house.”

“Oh?” Granger asked, her head tilting sideways in a familiar eager expression. She was ready to learn something new. “I don’t doubt its validity, but where did you come by that information?”

He shrugged. “It was common knowledge in Slytherin. Everyone had a parent or even a grandparent that could remember Dumbledore’s disdain for snakes. That’s part of why Snape was always giving us points for the most idiotic of reasons. He hated the unjust preferential treatment.” He couldn’t help but laugh humorlessly. “He fought preferential treatment by exhibiting preferential treatment. That makes two of the supposed ‘great men’ of the war that really were hideously illogical.”

“I’m sure there were many more than two with that problem,” Granger chuckled. “I once saw Mad-Eye Moody accuse a cuckoo clock of being a spy.”

“Was he really that barmy? I always assumed a lot of the madness in fourth year was Crouch’s doing.”

“Crouch’s portrayal was spot on,” she assured him. She took another sip of her tea, settling into her chair like she was getting ready to enjoy a lecture. “But enough of that. Tell me some of the stories you know about Dumbledore being awful to Slytherins. It’ll be great ammunition the next time Molly goes on about him at one of Harry’s family get-togethers.”

Laughing, Draco launched into the tales his father had told him of Dumbledore’s less than savory behavior from his student days. When those were exhausted, he dredged up the stories of some of his housemates’ family members from the depths of his memory. She listened with rapt attention, and even laughed at some of the voices he affected in the telling. When dawn began to approach and they walked together back to their building he didn’t tuck her hand into the crook of his elbow like he’d done every time before. This time he twined their fingers together, and she did not pull away.

\---

_ There was a beauty living on the edge of town; she always put the top up and the hammer down _

_ And she taught me everything I'll ever know about the mystery and the muscle of love _

\---

Weeks turned into months and, slowly, things changed. Life for Hermione settled into a frighteningly simple kind of rhythm. On weekday mornings she got up, went through her morning routine, walked to The Leaky Cauldron, and apparated to the Ministry. She spent all day alternating between pushing for the advancement of wizarding society and nursing headaches caused by that society’s reluctance for change in her broom cupboard of an office. Harry would usually pop by to make sure she’d eaten something for lunch. Being the Boy Who Lived Twice meant he was allowed longer breaks from his auror training that he typically took advantage of no matter how many times she told him it set a terrible example. She’d duck out to head home about an hour after everyone else in her department. Dinner was usually takeaway, and then she’d kip on the couch for a bit before she either woke up enough to put herself to bed or ran into a bout of insomnia and hiked down to the cafe.

Either Malfoy had a sixth sense about when she was going to have a restless night or all of his own nights were equally as restless. He was usually sitting at the same table where he’d been the night they discovered they began their light night companionship, a novel in one hand and strong coffee in the other. She could count the number of times she’d come in to find he wasn’t already there on one hand without using all of her fingers, and in all three instances he’d arrived by the time she finished doctoring up her first cup of tea.

It was strange for her to admit how much she enjoyed his company. There was an ease to him that she’d never seen in all their days at school. He’d accepted something about himself that made him a rather amiable conversation partner. It didn’t hurt that he was also equally as intelligent—a fact she never would have admitted aloud in their formative years. There was something doubly fulfilling about spending time with someone who could keep up with her half-formed-thought academic leaps from one conversation topic to the next. Not that she didn’t love her friends, of course. They just weren’t exactly interested in debating the merits of one wizard’s theory of transmogrification versus what McGonagall had taught them in school. She hadn’t realized she was missing that sort of interaction in her life, and she was quickly realizing that she wasn’t going to be able to go back to her old standards now that she’d had it.

Bigger than the academic, though, was the way she could talk to him about those other things that plagued her mind and kept her awake at night. For some reason, though they’d gone through a great deal of their suffering together, she just couldn’t discuss with Harry the traumas of the war. He’d moved on from it all so much more easily than she, processing and compartmentalizing it all the same way he had the traumas of his childhood. Malfoy handled things similarly to her. He needed to discuss everything he’d seen and done, and he was compelled to over-analyze every minute detail in the same way that Hermione herself did. Together they picked apart the smallest of things and, somewhere in the process, they each managed to move on. 

It was stunning and liberating and terrifying. The man who was now her dearest confidant, the one who understood her thoughts and feelings like no one ever had, was the same person who’d relentlessly tormented her as a child. He’d grown, obviously, and repeatedly expressed his regrets for how he’d treated her over the years. He was still a judgmental, sarcastic prick, but he actually listened when she spoke and his sharp quips were no longer made with any kind of malice. In truth, she found his wit refreshing. They could snipe back and forth without getting lost in hurt feelings.

And she  _ knew _ he had a good heart.

Even if she hadn’t known the truth of his actions during the war she would have been able to see the goodness in him from across the table. It was in his willingness to change, that dogged determination to leave his mistakes in his past and be better each day than he was the day before. It was in the way he still put himself in the firing line of his father’s ire just to make his mother smile to have his company every week, and the conspiratorial whisper he’d adopt when telling her about the drama he’d observed between the cafe’s staff just before he admitted to sneaking one of them an extra generous tip when he heard she was struggling financially.

However, even with all that knowledge about his person kicking around in her head, none of it was what Hermione Granger struggled to shake from her mind. No, her brain had latched onto other, more annoying observations. Like how warm his palm felt against hers even through gloves when he took her hand to walk her home. Or the way his stormy eyes lit up like they’d been hit with a bright bolt of lightning whenever he told her all about the latest tale of wild adventure that he was reading. Or how those features that once made her think of weasels and treachery now caused the tension to bleed out of her shoulders and butterflies to dance in her belly. 

She knew exactly what it was that she was feeling. She’d been there before. What she hadn’t anticipated was the effect it was having on her well being. Her teenage experience with attraction had presented her with sleepless nights and tears of jealousy, always wondering where she stood and why she wasn’t enough. She didn’t think about those things with Malfoy. If he were going to go back to treating her as subhuman he was sure to let her know. For all of his Slytherin cunning, he really wasn’t the type to keep his feelings on a person to himself.

Hermione mused over all of it as she sat across their usual table from him one night, watching him over the rim of her teacup. The weather had warmed, and he wasn’t wearing his wool cap or heavy jacket. His hair, no longer slicked down with far too much product, was trimmed quite short. It stuck up in white blonde spikes whenever he ran an absent hand over his scalp.

“Shake your head, Granger,” he murmured to her without looking up from his book. He always seemed to know when she was staring, though she never caught him looking back. “Your eyes are stuck.”

She neither shook her head nor looked away. Instead, she took a dramatically loud slurp of her tea just to annoy his pristine adherence to table manners. Still too much of a Gryffindor to hold back a pressing thought, she plowed ahead with the question that had been on her mind since she left her flat. 

“Do you sleep better on the nights we meet?”

\---

_ Those were the rights of spring and we did everything, there was salvation every night _

_ We got our dreams reborn and our upholstery torn, but everything we tried was right _

\---

Draco froze, his heart stuttering in his chest. He kept his eyes glued to the pages of  _ The Count of Monte Cristo _ , pretending as though he were engrossed in the story instead of internally panicking over Granger’s question. Of course he slept better on nights he saw her. When he spent time in her company he could almost forget that the majority of their schoolmates despised him, his father was a colossal prat, and he had painful recurring nightmares about the things he and his family had been responsible for in the war. When he was with Granger he finally understood what it felt like to be treated like an equal. Naturally he slept better after seeing her.

It had nothing to do with the fact that her warm smiles and ready laughter put his soul at ease. That he had memorized the exact curve of her jaw and longed to tangle his fingers in her wild hair. Certainly his sleep was only better because of the societal reassurances her seeing him as a decent man provoked and not because he saw the dimple in her cheek after she made a particularly cutting remark every time he closed his eyes. Obviously.

“Can’t say that I’ve noticed,” he lied, mindful of the twitch at the corner of his mouth that he knew would give him away. She knew all his tells now.

“I sleep better, too,” she admitted quietly.

His eyes jerked up to look at her in surprise. Her gaze wasn’t on him. She stared to the side, focusing on the window. Her jaw was tense, like she was biting back the urge to say more. A few stray curls bounced loose from her braid and brushed over her cheeks. There was a pink flush to her skin. If he didn’t know any better—and maybe he didn’t, because she did keep surprising him—he’d say she looked a bit shy.

He cleared his throat. “I suppose it helps. Purging the demons through conversation before they can come around to haunt the subconscious.”

“Yes,” she pursed her lips and he knew she’d caught his deflection. “That must be it. Couldn’t possibly be that we put one another at ease or anything.”

Blunt and concise, she cut through all of his bullshit. His heart thumped painfully even as the smile crossed his face. He was fucked, and he’d known it since the first time she let him hold her hand.

“Too right,” he agreed with a teasing note in his tone. Their eyes met, and he could swear an hour’s worth of conversation passed between them in the few sounds their heated gaze lasted. “Can’t have it getting confused.”

Granger changed the subject, steering their conversation back to safer topics. They talked of the upcoming completion of renovations at Azkaban and whether the reforms to prison upkeep would hold once there was action to match the talk the Wizengamot had been doing. They chatted about his mother’s increasing level of ‘I’m tired of this crap’ every time his father threw a fit and Ginny Weasley’s newfound interest in setting Hermione up on dates. If their legs brushed beneath the table more often than usual or their fingers lingered just a bit longer on one another’s skin when they passed the sugar nothing was said. Somehow, they finished their drinks within moments of one another nearly two hours before they usually left the cafe. Neither of them mentioned the change in timing as they gathered their things, and both of them staunchly ignored the poorly hidden grins that the staff were aiming in their direction as they sauntered toward the door.

She entwined her fingers with his before the cafe’s front door had even closed behind them, apparently not willing to wait for him to take the initiative. Every minute point of contact where their skin touched sent jolts of electricity up the length of his arm. He hardly noticed the surrounding streets, still a little busy with the late night folks still making their way home from the pubs. They talked while they walked, but for the life of him Draco couldn’t have said what any of their conversations were about. All he could think about was the feel of her hand in his, the scent of her perfume on the air, and the suddenly very real idea that those feelings he’d been pretending not to have might actually be reciprocated. The trip from the cafe to their building simultaneously felt like it lasted a handful of minutes and an excruciating number of hours. Finally, they made their way through the floor and started up the stairs.

They paused at the door to her apartment, the silence between them so full of tension and promise that he thought his heart must be thumping loud enough for her to hear it as clearly as a bell. He took a deep breath, ready to say anything to relieve the pressure hanging in the air.

“Well, Granger—” 

“Would you like to come in?” she interrupted before he managed to get the words out. That fire from the cafe was back in her eyes, bright and knowing.

Suddenly nervous, he hesitated. Was getting involved like this really a good idea? They had only just discovered that they made decent friends. Would she come to her senses in the morning and leave him to fall back on his anger like he’d done so much in his youth? No, his mind insisted. He knew her better than that. She might rush blindly into danger for the sake of others, but she was always cautious when it came to her own matters of the heart.

“Draco.” 

He snapped back to reality, the force of her using his first name hitting him almost as strongly as a physical blow. She smiled up at him, leaning back against her door with one hand on the knob. His hesitation vanished.

“Come inside with me.”

\---

_ She used her body just like a bandage, _

_ She used my body just like a wound _

\---

Her hip connected painfully with a corner of the credenza, and she was sure there would be a bruise in the morning. Something rattled off the other end of the poor piece of furniture, crashing to the floor in a clatter of noise that would probably alarm the downstairs neighbors if she hadn’t charmed the floorboards with heavy noise dampening. Hermione barely noticed, too occupied with the way Draco was pressed against her entire front. She wove the fingers of one hand through the short spikes of his hair, memorizing its soft texture as her lips sipped greedily at his. His hand slipped beneath the hem of her shirt, ghosting lightly across the skin of her lower back, and she gasped as though his touch could truly set fire to her skin. 

Draco murmured something unintelligible against her lips and trailed a white hot line of kisses across her jaw. He tangled the hand that wasn’t beneath her shirt in the wild locks of her hair just as he found a particularly sensitive spot beneath her ear. WIth one and braced against the credenza Hermione boosted herself up to sit on its surface and all but yanked him until he stood between her spread thighs.

“Bloody hell, Granger,” he groaned against the side of her throat. He rolled his hips against her own, the hard evidence of his interest pressing tight against the seam of her jeans. 

She turned her head and nipped at his earlobe, a snarky retort rising before she could stop it. “You’ve had your tongue in my mouth and still can’t call me by my first name?”

“Hermione,” he purred in response, his voice dropping just a bit lower. He attacked the spot below her ear again, first dragging his teeth over her skin and then sucking gently. 

Groaning, she rocked her hips against his once more, wrapping her legs around him for leverage. They were both wearing entirely too many clothes, but she couldn’t bring herself to stop touching him long enough to do something about it. Her hands wandered over his back and shoulders, alternating between light caresses and tight grasps as he continued his assault on the side of her neck. His hand at her back slipped around to her front beneath her shirt, creeping upward until his thumb swept across her nipple where it was pebbled beneath the thin lace of her bra.

“Bedroom,” she demanded as she yanked his head back to give him another deep, searing kiss. She flapped a hand inelegantly toward the back of the flat when they came up for air a moment later to indicate the direction. “To the right and all the way back.”

“I have the apartment right above you,” he teased. He wrapped one arm around her waist and gripped her upper thigh just below her bottom with his other hand, then stepped away from the credenza with her suspended in his arms. “I know the layout.”

She clung to him with her arms draped over his shoulders while he walked them back to the bedroom, taking advantage of how he’d momentarily lifted his face away from hers to make a retaliatory attack on his neck and collarbone. One of her hands crept back over his shoulder to his chest of its own volition, working furiously at the topmost shirt button keeping her from reaching his bare skin. He gave a strangled moan of approval as they crossed the threshold to the bedroom. She had only a fleeting moment to wonder if she’d put all her dirty laundry in the hamper before he tumbled the both of them onto the bed and sealed his lips over hers. She could feel his hands creeping around to the front of her top even as she managed to work his first two buttons free.

“How do you get this bloody thing off?” he growled a moment later, fighting with slippery round buttons on the front of her blouse.

“For heaven’s sake,” she huffed back, already halfway through the fastenings of his shirt and having little difficulty. “Are you a wizard or not?”

He blinked like she’d hit him over the head with something. With a little huff of a laugh he sat back on his haunches, produced his wand from somewhere in the pockets of his trousers, and vanished their clothes with a wordless flourish. The wand rolled off the bed and onto the floor as he smoothed his hands over the tops of her thighs, and drank in the sight of her spread out on the sheets. His pale skin was almost luminous in the faint glow from the street lamps outside her bedroom window. Hermione let her gaze roam over the broad expanse of his chest, winding down to the line of fine white hair running southward from just below his navel. His cock stood proudly from the thatch of hair where the line ended, hard and flushed and leaking. She watched as his eyes trailed over her in return, a look of awe on his face.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful,” he whispered. He ran his hands up the front of her thighs to her hips, then dragged one of them along the crease where her leg met her torso. He dragged to fingers along her center, hissing at the dampness he found there. “And wet.”

Her hips jerked as he stroked one finger feather-light over her clit, a tiny whine rising up from her throat. “I think that’s a sign you’re supposed to be doing something,” she snapped with a breathy little laugh, wrapping her legs around his hips to pull him closer to where she wanted him. “Any idea what that could be?”

“So impatient. Just like a Gryffindor.”

For all his teasing, he didn’t make her wait. He lined himself with one hand, the other gripping her hip as he worked his way into her with short, shallow thrusts. He took his time, making sure she’d adjusted before he pushed in farther, and watched her face for any signs of discomfort. They both groaned when he was finally fully seated inside of her, panting with the effort of going so slowly. Trembling, Draco traced a path with one hand up over her navel, between her breasts, across her collarbone, and down the length of her left harm, following the motion with his eyes all the while. He slowed as his fingertips trailed over her forearm, his eyes fixed on the scars his aunt had left behind.

Hermione tensed, half expecting him to recoil. She found the scarring to be hideous, and knew he felt the same way about the remnants of his own Dark Mark, but he surprised her. He leaned forward, bracing himself by placing his left hand against the mattress by her head, and took her forearm in a gentle grip. He bent close, lifting her arm at the same time, and pressed a soft kiss to every letter of that hateful word, his eyes on hers the entire time. Tears pricked the backs of her eyes. Absolution. Slowly, sure to hold his gaze as she moved, she wrapped her hand around his left forearm where it rested beside her head. She turned her head to the side and pressed a lingering kiss against the faded remains of the Dark Mark. He looked at her like she was goodness incarnate, reverence in every millimeter of his expression, and then he began to move.

When it was over they both lay panting, sprawled beside one another on rumpled sheets. 

“Stay,” she whispered, reaching for his hand when he shifted as though he might be getting out of bed. “Stay with me.”

“Wasn’t planning to leave unless you kicked me out,” he assured her, leaning over to give her a kiss. “But I do need to figure out where my wand went so I can clean us both up.”

\---

_ And objects in the rear view mirror may appear closer than they are _

_ Objects in the rear view mirror may appear closer than they are _

\---

Draco awoke to the sensation of something tickling at the side of his nose. He blinked his eyes open slowly to find he’d buried his face close against the back of Hermione’s head. He was curled around her, one arm tucked neatly about her waist while the other rested beneath the pillow where she lay her head. She shuffled a bit in her sleep, pressing back into the warmth of his body. He smiled and pulled her closer, twining their legs beneath the comforter.

“Good morning,” he murmured, burrowing through her hair until he could press his lips against the side of her neck.”

“‘Morning,” she mumbled sleepily, squirming down further into the mattress. “I think I finally get why people stay abed sometimes. I don’t want to get up.”

He laughed. “Then don’t. I’m certainly not going to force you.”

“Mmmm,” she hummed. Her hand sought his where it lay over her stomach and tangled their fingers together. When she spoke again her voice was quiet—and a little anxious. “No regrets?”

Draco took a deep breath, squeezed her hand in his, and shuffled just a bit closer. “Not a one,” he assured her. “You?”

“None.” Her thumb stroked back and forth over his, her breaths deep and slow. “Is this a thing now?”

“I should bloody well hope so.” He nipped gently at her earlobe, teasing in more ways than one. “You don’t think I take just anyone to bed, do you Granger? I’m sorry to disillusion you, but I’m just not the type for casual sexual liaisons. Hussy.”

The rolling of her eyes was almost audible. “Of course. How silly of me.”

They lay in comfortable silence for a while. Draco looked around the room a bit while they cuddled, taking in the decor he hadn’t taken the time to appreciate the night before. The walls were hung with heavy swathes of richly colored fabrics. He’d half expected her to deck her bedroom out in Gryffindor colors, but now that he was there he couldn’t imagine why. This option obviously suited her better. There was a stack of books on the nightstand. Not, of course, that finding books in Hermione Granger’s room was a surprise. What surprised him were the titles. The books were the six novels he’d been reading most recently. It looked like she was picking them up to read whenever he turned up with a new one so they’d be able to discuss it by the time he finished. He couldn’t help but smile at the thought. Little gestures.

“We can’t stay here forever, you know,” she sighed, interrupting his musing. “Eventually we’ll have to drag ourselves out to go on the hunt for food.”

“We could just cook something,” he suggested, just as reluctant to leave their cozy little cocoon. And to have her put on clothes. Now that he’d seen her without them he knew there would be a part of him that would always be sad when she had to get dressed. “Make it fast and crawl back in bed.”

Hermione released his hand to turn in his arms, wide brown eyes looking up at him. They reminded him of cinnamon, warm and rich. “We might could do that if I had anything in the flat to cook.” She wrinkled her nose. “I can’t actually cook at all. I usually just live off of takeaway.”

“You mean there’s actually something little Miss Know-it-All can’t do?” he asked with a teasing laugh. “I’ll have to send an owl to the Prophet.”

“Oh, hush,” she hissed, thumping the middle of his chest lightly. “It’s not like I expect you to be much better at it given that you grew up with house elves preparing the family meals.”

“I’ll have you know that I’m a fine cook.” Because he could, Draco leaned forward to peck a quick kiss on the tip of her nose. “One of the first things I did in the muggle world was take a basic cooking class.”

“You’re joking.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “You took a class on not just cooking but  _ muggle _ cooking?”

He smirked at her with the same sort of self-assurance that he usually adopted when they were arguing magical theory and he was sure he was right. “Of course not. I’ve taken nearly a dozen by this point.” He sniffed in mild affront. “Mrs. Stokeworth says I’ve got the talent. She always lets me know when a class has an open space.”

“Now I know you’re taking the piss,” Hermione teased, but the warmth in her eyes looked an awful lot like approval. “It’s a pity I don’t keep groceries. I don’t have a way to make you prove it to me.”

“That’s not true.” He dragged a hand down the length of her back and squeezed her bum, smirking when she rocked her hips closer in response. “We could go upstairs to my flat. I’ve got groceries and cookware. Lots of proving to be done up there.”

“Lots of proving to be done here first,” she insisted.

Draco let his hand trail down the back of her thigh until he could hoist her leg over his hip. “I’ll just have to prove myself twice over today then.” He nudged her face up with the tip of his nose, seeking out that spot beneath her ear that made her shiver. “What do I get if I prove myself to you enough?”

“If you’re lucky,” she sassed, “I might come with you to a Saturday dinner with your parents. Really give Lucius something to pitch a fit over.”

He lost it, chuckling loudly into the curve of her neck. There was light dancing in her eyes when he pulled back to look at her, a cheeky grin on her face. “I’m starting to think a good bit of that famous brilliance is actually villainous plots, Granger.”

“Does that bother you?” she asked with one eyebrow raised. “Am I too mean for Draco Malfoy?”

“Absolutely not.” 

Before either of them could say another word her stomach growled loudly. She blushed, biting her bottom lip and looking up at him through her lashes. “Sorry. Bit of a mood killer, that.”

“Not at all.” He kissed her gently, then started to peel his way out from under the blankets. “But the mood can wait. Let’s go upstairs, and I’ll feed you before your stomach decides to detach itself and eat us both.”

“I meant what I said, you know,” she told him a moment later while they were busy getting dressed. He gave her a quizzical look, head tilted to one side. “About coming to dinner with your parents. If you want.”

His smile lit up the room. “Careful, Hermione. I’ll hold you to it.”

The following Saturday, having proven himself both in the kitchen and elsewhere, he did exactly that.

The long gravel drive of the Channel Islands estate seemed shorter than ever as Draco and Hermione made their way to the front of the house hand in hand. In an effort to calm the storm they both knew was coming once they were inside, they’d both donned very nice sets of robes. Not quite dress robes, but still a little fancier than what either of them wore on a day to day basis in wizarding society. They were both fairly certain it wasn’t going to help when Lucius fully understood what was happening, but for Narcissa’s sake they were doing what they could.

No names had been mentioned when Draco wrote to tell his mother he would be bringing a lady friend to dinner. He had never needed to introduce a girlfriend to them before. With the way society had worked, he’d grown up expecting that one day his parents would choose his spouse for him. Lucius had even mentioned such a thing once or twice since the war ended, but his mother insisted that she expected no such thing. Privately, she told him, she’d always believed that Andromeda was the one of them who made the right decision when she married for love. Marriage wasn’t even on the table, but that was the conversation Draco played over in his mind to quell his nerves as they knocked on the front door.

“Hello, mother,” he said with a cheerfulness he didn’t quite feel when she opened the door. Hermione squeezed his hand in silent reassurance and he summoned his courage. “You remember Hermione Granger, yes?”

Narcissa’s face ran a quick gauntlet of emotions in a matter of seconds. First there was surprise followed by what he almost thought might have been a pleased half smile. Then her brows knit together, and she gave an audible sigh of exasperation. He smirked at her, knowing without asking that her mind had turned to the reaction his father was likely to display.

“Do come in,” his mother told them with a fond shake of her head. “There’s tea in the drawing room. I’ll join you after I’ve cast a few reinforcement spells over the china.”


End file.
